I'm in that huge office building between Raleigh and Chapel Hill. Yeah, the one that blights the skyline with its sheer unaccompanied monstrosity. It's named "University Tower." I spent four years in college here, passed it ump-teen times and I find this out at 8:50 a.m.; I've been awake for four hours and flown from LaGuardia to RDU on five (Maybe. Maybe.) hours sleep, a day after I drove eight hours (four each way) to spend three hours in Cooperstown (two interviewing for a job, one exploring the Hall) on five hours sleep (Maybe. Maybe.) after working a closing shift at Barnes & Noble the night before and reigniting the longest-running non-situation of all time; I also found time to lead off a poetry open mic, hang out with my best (and oldest) friend multiple times and make some necessary phone calls to maintain other (shorter-running) situations; this neglects to mention the calvalcade of family (culinary) events that took place this past weekend due to my (awesome) Grandmother's combination retirement and 80th birthday (non-)surprise party.

Are you tired after reading that sentence? Do your eyes feel a little strained? Just wanna lean back and look away from what you're supposed to be focusing on?

Good. Because you're starting to get some sense of where I'm at right now. I'd say I was delirious if I weren't coherent. Stupid stress. Shapel called me out on this, but if you pay attention, I'm not all there right now. I need to slow down. I'm just not sure how.

Maybe this is just being 22.

As I walked home, I thought about picking up the clarinet again. Just dropping into some music store, buying some reeds and testing out the ole chops. As I neared the end of the final block, I heard the strains of someone practicing (not-so-well) the saxophone. That was some relevant ish. Sometimes, it all comes together.

Then I got in the house and had to let the dog out to go pee.

Haha. I'm buggin'. So it goes. I'm about to check the NuYo tomorrow (Friday). I'm getting deep in this poetry scene. I'm a friendly cat, and these dudes all seem to be diggin' me as an artist. It's obvious I'm green, but they're all so encouraging. At least the crews I'm rollin' with.

If this move to Cooperstown happens (I'm knocking on wood like a mofucker right now), I'm starting an open mic if there isn't one already. I've got to keep up with this. Motivation like I've got at the moment is going to make the Genesis remix actually coalesce.

Provided I have time. Did I mention I'm locked in to write a manuscript for a book? It's going to be a companion to the Shellman Talks Baseball CDs (available at that very Web site.) The deal is there's this 70-something guy Dale Shellman, who was a failed minor league ballplayer with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1985, when the first million-dollar salaries were being handed out, he got PO'ed at the amount of money these guys were making. So he bought a tape recorder, packed his family into a fan and set off for Spring Training.

He then finagled a press pass and proceeded to interview 88 players for 21 hours total. The 88 players include Hall of Famers, retired (ex: Ted Williams) and active (Mike Schmidt) , as well as a slew of the top players of the era. Topics ranged from the technical aspects of baseball to the baseball life, but focused on the money issue and how large salaries were changing (and would continue to change) the game.

After failing to publish a book himself, Shellman stored the tapes for 20 years before breaking them out last year. After a year-long struggle to market them in some fashion, the company hit on this book idea, and contacted a professor in the journalism department at UNC. He put out an APB, and two of my former professors contacted me independentlly, at which point I decided I needed to follow up on this. Everything fell into place, and now I'm being flown into Chapel Hill for two days next weekend to brainstorm and figure all this out.

It's funny, I don't feel that busy, but writing this down makes it all seem really intimidating. Doubly so when I think that I just went on a very solid first date with the best friend of one of my best friends, and I'm somehow 1st and 2nd in my two facebook pools (55th at UNC, 7k-ish overall) with a bracket I filled out on a lark just to browse over all the potential matchups. I'm officially mad I didn't do a serious one for serioius money. I think by equating those two things, I've just proved my life is ridiculous at the moment. I want my fantasy draft to be over. (It's Sunday.) That'll be one less thing looming over me.

I believe it's time for The O.C. and some sleep. Night kids.

The first line in my new notebook/journal, written March 17 at 3:43 p.m.:

I'm not a very good liar. But I also have trouble telling the truth.

That might be the most honest two sentences I ever wrote.

Wow. I totally just caught the most unexpected co-sign of all time:

Read this muchmusic.com interview with Juelz Santana, and pay attention to his response to the seventh question.

This brings "I've got nothin' " to a whole new level.

I just ran over an AIM convo I left open, and saw quite the pretzel-purchase-inducing line:

theswillbarber (12:29:41 PM): cuse has been dogging it all season -- they finally played up to themselves in the tourney
theswillbarber (12:29:50 PM): but i do agree they blew their wad
ShayFree22 (12:29:55 PM): ewww
theswillbarber (12:30:08 PM): haha... sorry about that one ... guy comment
theswillbarber (12:30:15 PM): sports talk gets me riled up

A several-day-old truism regarding the womenfolk, courtesy of Alex, Sasha, or However You Know Him:

"Be ready for nothing at all. Because they'll tell you, 'I'll make it worth your while.' And then just buy you a pretzel."

I've been bought a lot of pretzels of late, but things are starting to turn. We shall see.

An actual online exchange between Sasha and myself from Sunday night (Note this took a mere 2 minutes 1 second):

The Swill Barber (10:14:47 PM): watch i'ma catch this job with the hall, then my shit's gonna be all out of whack
The Swill Barber (10:15:14 PM): nobody's gonna come to cooperstown god damn it
The Swill Barber (10:15:25 PM): cept baseball fans i guess
The Swill Barber (10:15:42 PM): and there've gotta be some hot teachers or camp counselors rollin through
The Swill Barber (10:15:54 PM): i'ma get fired for having sex inthe bathroom
The Swill Barber (10:15:56 PM): hahahaha
The Swill Barber (10:16:05 PM): i need to stop talking
helios483 (10:16:12 PM): yes
The Swill Barber (10:16:12 PM): i hate erin and her free beer
helios483 (10:16:14 PM): i think you do
helios483 (10:16:20 PM): cause i was just about to say i would try to visit
helios483 (10:16:27 PM): but if you try to have sex with me in the bathroom, damn it
The Swill Barber (10:16:41 PM): i'm no mary, ha
helios483 (10:16:44 PM): haha
The Swill Barber (10:16:48 PM): but yeah, that's reasonable

Just caught this flash cartoon cracking on Coach K(ryzlajdlajdlkalkd). It's sharp-edged, and the "D-Harmony" commercial spoof of E-Harmony kills me every time I watch it. Enjoy.

PS
Thanks Miriam for sending it.